Synthesis and Characterization of CdSnTe Nanostructures for Photonics Applications

What is it about?

In this work, nanostructured cadmium tin telluride (CdSnTe) thin films were deposited on glass substrates by dc magnetron co-sputtering technique. The sputtered target was prepared by the thermal alloying of Cd, Sn and Se samples at 500 °C. The structural characterizations showed that the prepared targets were polycrystalline while the deposited CdSnTe films exhibited amorphous structure due to the growth of nanostructures on the substrates, which was also confirmed by the scanning electron microscopy. These films showed high absorption in the ultraviolet region, which is decreasing with wavelength with an absorption edge at about 550 nm. These films are approximately transparent in the near-infrared region (>800nm). The energy band gap of these films was determined to be direct allowed of 1.9655 eV. The photoluminescence measurements on the deposited films showed some enhancement in the intensity with a blue-shift in peak wavelength when compared to the CdTe thin films prepared by the same technique.

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Why is it important?

In concluding remarks, nanostructured CdSnTe thin films were deposited by dc magnetron co-sputtering of CdSnTe target prepared by thermal alloying at 500 °C. The optical properties of the deposited compound semiconducting films shows high absorption in the UV region, an absorption edge in the visible region (at about 560 nm), direct energy band gap of 1.9655 eV and reasonable enhancement (~3 %) in the photoluminescence spectrum with a blue-shift (~20 nm) when compared to that of CdTe thin films deposited with the same technique.

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